The requirements to run for UOSA president may soon change thanks to a bill the Undergraduate Student Congress will discuss tonight.

If the bill gets approved, students must serve on UOSA’s executive or legislative branches for at least three semesters or two back-to-back semesters before being eligible to run for UOSA president.

The consideration of this potential change, in addition to UOSA’s battle against the Oklahoma Students for a Democratic Society, a group fighting for student government reform, mark the emergence of a definite “us versus them” mentality among the leaders of OU’s student government.

The “us” in this case would be those leaders, and the “them” would be the students those very same leaders are supposed to represent.

This is definitely not a good thing. Although we think UOSA is often largely ineffective, it still must be accountable to students.

But excluding the vast majority of the student population from eligibility to run for UOSA president would definitely be a step in the wrong direction.

Just because a student has not served on UOSA in the past does not mean he or she is incapable of doing a good job in the position.

In fact, bringing in someone with a lack of UOSA experience may actually benefit the group because it would allow UOSA to be led by someone with a fresh, outside perspective.

We fear that once someone has spent too much time serving on UOSA, he or she begins to become disconnected from the student body.

This disconnect shows itself as UOSA battles Oklahoma Students for a Democratic Society in the group’s attempt to get student government reforms on the ballot in November for students to vote on.

All Oklahoma Students for a Democratic Society wants to do is give students the opportunity to vote on their proposed reforms. But UOSA is trying to stifle this effort, which is extremely unfortunate.

Maybe the Oklahoma Students for a Democratic Society reforms wouldn’t be successful in making UOSA more accountable, but it’s certainly worth a try.

After all, what UOSA is doing right now doesn’t seem to matter.

For proof of this, just take a look at voter turnout in UOSA elections. Only a small fraction of students vote because most of them obviously don’t care.

Perhaps potential accountability-minded reforms would make students care.